EYFS

Intent

At St Matthew’s we endeavour to give our children a strong foundation for their future learning. We place great importance on treating each child as an individual and providing them with the skills, knowledge and guidance they need in order to be successful learners. In order to do this we take into consideration the starting points and needs of each of our children and work from here to begin their learning journey. We aim to provide our children with an environment in which they feel safe and secure to explore their interests and respond to new ones that we bring to their attention. We place a great emphasis on helping children to develop their vocabulary and use this to be able to communicate effectively and have positive interactions with other. We aim to work collaboratively with parents and carers to build strong home-school relationships that can positively impact on the children’s learning. We work hard to ensure are children are ready for the next phase of their learning when they leave us. Above all else we want our children to enjoy coming to school and develop a thirst and learning new skills which will last them a lifetime.

Implementation

In Foundation Stage we work from the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework which sets standards for the learning, development and care of children from birth to five years old. We carefully plan our Early Years curriculum in order to help our children develop and to prepare them for all their future learning as they transition through school. The three characteristics of teaching and learning which are; playing and exploring, active learning and creating and thinking critically are at the heart of all we do at St Matthew’s. We use these to help equip our children with skills that will help them to become successful throughout their life. In Foundation Stage our adults play a vital role in helping support our children in their learning. They intervene when required to further extend the children’s knowledge and understanding as well as stepping back when appropriate to allow our children to become confident and independent learners. The Early Years Curriculum provides a play based and experiential learning environment which is carefully planned by practitioners. We also aim to provide our children with rich first hand experiences to help widen the children’s encounters of the wonderful world around them.

EYFS Long Term Curriculum Overview

Summer Curriculum Overviews

Spring Curriculum Overviews